Shixuan Liu

Shixuan Liu is a postdoctoral fellow jointly advised by Drs. James Ferrell and Mark Krasnow. She is interested in the molecular clock that controls the animal seasonal rhythms, such as hibernation and seasonal reproduction cycles. Similarly as the circadian rhythm, seasonal rhythms can be entrained by environmental signals (e.g., photoperiod) but maintain to cycle even without external cues. To identify the molecules underlying the seasonal clock, Shixuan is combining expertise of her both labs and is taking a systemic screening approach to search for the seasonally oscillating molecules.

Shixuan was trained as a systems biologist. She obtained her B.S. degree at Peking University in Beijing where she was first introduced the beauty of systems biology by Dr. Chao Tang. She then moved to Toronto, Canada and studied in Dr. Ran Kafri’s lab at the University of Toronto. In her Ph.D., Shixuan worked on cell size and cell cycle control through high-content screening. Shixuan is now applying the systematic screening approaches to the new problem of seasonal rhythms